BFD3 Library for Kontakt Kits 2, 3 and Percussion Pieces

BFD3 Library for Kontakt: Kits 2 & 3 + Percussion Pieces | Kit 2: 3.4 GB. Kit 3: 4.3 GB. Percussion Pieces: 228 MB
Previous Releases: Kit 1, Kits 4, 6 and 7, Kit 5

These are the last 2 kits of the BFD3 Factory Content.

Kit 3 follows the same structure as Kits 1 & 4. As for Kit 2, each sample provided by fxpansion consists of 16 channels. Which means for the Mic I called Room Far, we have both stereo (2 channels) and mono (5 channels). When converting this Kit, I had 4 options, 3 of them would not require any script changes:

Option 1: Provide only the mono channels for Room Far
Option 2: Provide only the stereo channels for Room Far
Option 3: Mix the stereo channel with the 5 mono channels (i.e convert the 5 mono channels into stereo and mix them with the stereo samples) .
Option 4: Change the script and provide an extra mic (I called it Amb Mono) and use the stereo channels for the Room Far and the mono ones for the new mic.

To provide the best results, one would choose Option 4 and that's what I did. So I modified both my program used for converting the BFD3 samples into multi files and the Kontakt script to support a fifth Mic.

I have also added one small feature which I hope would help those who like to route Mics to different output channels.


As you can see from my screenshot, there is now a drop down at the bottom of each Mic. By default it is Master. This will allow you to route each Mic to different output channels. One very important note to those who already changed the routing for each Mic using the instrument edit and Bus Output. If you already created a project in your DAW and used multi routing for any of the instruments in previous kits: After you overwrite your old NKR file with the new one, the first time you open this project, you need to set the output of each Mic from the interface to the one you chose previously. You only need to do this once; after that, your choice will be saved. Same thing if you used Kontakt as a stand-alone and saved the instrument after you changed the routing of one or more buses.

As an extra content, fxpansion provided 6 instruments under Percussion Pieces. These are actually the same 6 instruments that were provided in the BFD Percussion Expansion Pack. These 6 instruments have also been converted and posted here.



For me, one of the most frustrating thing about all BFD versions is that for any instrument outside a drum kit, you will have to go to the details of the instrument or sometimes (like the Taiko expansion kit) you have to go to the manual to see what hit each one presents. BFD just lists them using the general terms they use (like Alt, Drag, Flam, etc...). So what I did here is that I got the name of the hits from their instrument file and put the real name of the hit so that you can see the description of each type of hit. As an example if you look at the above screenshot, you will see the actual name of the 5 different hits of the Carroll Sound Tambourine: Center Hit, Thumb Roll, Single Shake, Edge with Fingers, Muted Hit. In BFD3 (and previous versions as well), you will see them as: Hit, Drag, Flam, Rim, SS. Fun Fact: in the BFD Expansion Pack, the manufacturer of the Cabasa was LP... here it is Carroll Sound... and the samples are the same. Go figure! I know that because I have already converted the BFD Percussion and they are exactly the same samples.

As mentioned in my previous posts, if you don't want these kits but you want to use the new multi-routing feature for the other kits in my previous posts, just download the NKR file and overwrite your old one.

All in all, the 7 kits + Percussion pieces in Kontakt amount to 31.7 GB as opposed to (I think) 55 GB in BFD3. I know that here you don't have the flexibility (although it could have been easily done) to play with the Snare Top, Snare Bottom, Kick In, Kick out and Snare Top 2 Mics (as they are all mixed into one mono channel) and also with the 5 ambient mono channels (used in Kits 1 to 4 also because they have been all mixed into one mono channel), but if you are like me and you don't use multi channel routing, and you always set the same gain for these 5 Mics, I think these Kotakt kits will give you the same end result with the bonus of taxing your system less than BFD3 and also having the advantage of using less HD space.

The Wanderer